How to Participate
It’s not easy to participate in the policymaking process. We don’t have systems designed to encourage meaningful public deliberation, much less to allow ordinary people to become decision-makers.
But there are several ways for you to share your ideas and feelings with your elected representatives and you can learn to work through those channels as powerfully as possible.
Like we mentioned before, the more effort you put into an action, and the more people you get to take the action with you, the more you amplify the weight of what you’re doing.
We’ll start with the easiest ways to have your say and work our way up.
Digital Activism
The easiest thing you can do to give your input as an individual is to sign a digital petition. The biggest value for petitions overall is that they can draw attention to your cause. They also get you on an email/text message list and the organizers can then ask you to take bigger actions, like making phone calls and showing up in person.
Almost as easy is an online form that lets you send a pre-written message directly to your elected official. That way they’re notified directly of your position. Ideally you should customize the message with a bit about who you are and why the issue is important to you. But they often need your home address so the technology knows which elected official to send your message to.
Petitions and mass message campaigns can be useful in a variety of circumstances – getting a committee to actually schedule something for a vote, pushing a committee or full board to vote your way, and getting attention from the press and a wider variety of supporters.
Emails and Phone Calls
The next step up in difficulty and impact is personally contacting the office of an elected official by sending a personal email or making a phone call.
If you’re contacting an elected official office directly, it can be helpful to reach out to the specific person who covers your neighborhood or the issue area you care about. You can find out which staffers cover which areas by looking on the official’s website or simply by calling up the office and asking.
Sometimes you’ll be asked to take one or more of these steps by a coalition; other times you might be taking the initiative on your own. No matter what, you should begin by “credentialing” yourself — saying who are, whether you are a constituent or another kind of stakeholder for the geography or issue area, and any organization or set of people you represent, if applicable.
Except in rare circumstances, it’s generally useful to be polite with staff members. They are not the ultimate decision-makers and may not even agree with their bosses on everything. Be kind and avoid alienating them unnecessarily. You may even be able to pick up an ally on the inside who can feed you useful information and tips. You can determine your local, state, and federal representatives and find contact information at laforward.org/who-represents-me.
Public Comment
“Public Comment” is another avenue for getting your perspective heard and seen. Like the phrase indicates, it has the value of being public and it becomes part of the permanent government record associated with the issue you are commenting on. It’s another place to rack up a large number of messages to put pressure on elected officials and a way to grab their attention in a public forum.
There are two kinds of public comment. The first is a written comment, submitted through the government’s official website. The second is a spoken comment, which used to require spending a couple hours in person at a meeting in the middle of the day (at least for LA City and LA County), but now can be done via phone or video in many cities.
Written comment is useful because it allows you the space, without any time pressure, to register your position in the official public record.
Spoken public comment is powerful in other ways, especially when elected officials are about to take an important vote. Most of the other information they get about policies and public opinion is filtered through their staffers but during spoken public comment, you have an opportunity to talk out loud with them and garner their attention.
You’ll only get 1-2 minutes so use your time wisely. The same rules as always apply — let them know who you are, why you care, and so on. The more compelling of a story you can tell or an argument you can make, the better.
For examples on preparing a public comment for the County Board of Supervisors visit here.
To submit a public comment to the County Board of Supervisors visit here
For examples on preparing a public comment to the Los Angeles City Council visit here.
To submit a public comment to the Los Angeles City Council visit here.
More helpful tips on public comment are available from LA Pays Attention.
Letters
If you need more space to make your case to your elected representative, want to show them the breadth of support, or both, a good old-fashioned letter is a useful tactic. Instead of a short burst of talking points, a multipage document gives you the room to explain the details of your position. The letter can be from a single individual or from an organization. A group sending a letter may circulate it to partners and other sympathetic organizations to get “sign-ons.” Emailing an elected official with a detailed letter that has dozens of signatures from group leaders and organizational logos is a good way to have your point be heard, even if it’s far from enough to help you win.
Ready to take your activism to the next step? Keep reading for how to make an even greater impact.